There Loomed An Ogre - 19/20. Or 21.
Tony was still wrestling with talk to me when Gibbs threw his second grenade into the ring. And it was a classic delayed reaction, as he heard the words in passing and carried on with his internal debate; then after a moment, he stopped short, blinked once, and rewound.
He had heard what he thought he heard.
A statement, not a query. It was quiet. And flat. And an odd mix of - what?
Nonplussed.
And - lost? The last one gave him pause, and he stopped to consider for a moment, twisting it and turning it, then deciding he needed more evidence to reach any conclusions.
Which he couldn’t do with his face buried away behind his hands. Intrigued enough to come out again before he remembered he was hiding, he flinched away from Gibbs’ look - only to find that while he’d been dancing a mental jig, this conversation had done a full one eighty and left him standing. Or not conversation, seeing as nobody had actually said anything for a while. Encounter. That worked better.
He noted ‘concentration shot to hell’ on his mental checklist of things wrong with him, and then pulled himself back onto the point.
There was no look. The older man was still laid back on the couch, but the twitch of amusement and the defining solidity were nowhere to be seen. Head tilted back, eyes closed; and he looked much, much older than he usually did. Tired. Worn.
It was wrong. He didn’t like to see it. Didn’t want to. His boss was always a fact, never a question. He simply was, and as long as he was, then the world could keep turning. Gibbs didn’t doubt. He didn’t wonder. He simply bent life to his will and carried on regardless.
At least, Tony thought he did.
“Boss?”
The eyes opened, and he found himself looking at someone who appeared to be every bit as bone weary as he felt himself.
After a short break of nothing at all, he realised that the older man was waiting for him to follow up. Shame he hadn’t thought further than that one word.
“You ok?”
That got an incredulous look. “Am I ok? You looked in the mirror recently?”
He could pinpoint the exact moment when Gibbs heard his own comment, lips thinning, eyes slipping down before coming back with a touch of defensiveness. Wondered if he should point out that actually, he knew he looked crap, and he felt about a thousand times worse, and he’d be a bit of a hypocrite to get worked up because Gibbs had noticed that he wasn’t quite on top form.
Maybe he would. Later. Right now, he was rather more interested in getting an answer. A proper one.
“You’re avoiding the question.”
***
He was avoiding the question?
Whatever else might be wrong, Tony hadn’t lost any of his nerve. Not even Ducky would have tried that tack.
Couldn’t quite be offended. Mainly because it was reassuring. Good to know that the Tony he knew was still about, somewhere.
“Do you know why I hired you?”
Tony looked confused and a little wary at another change of subject, but took it up anyway.
“Guilt.”
“Guilt? I do not hire people out of guilt, DiNozzo.”
“You mean you weren’t feeling guilty?”
Oh no. Not touching that with a ten foot pole.
“You can stop that right now. We are not going there.”
There was the slightest hint of a smile, and for the first time all night he actually began to believe Tony might still be willing to try and salvage something from this wreckage.
“Didn’t start it, boss.”
“Now who’s avoiding the question?”
“I answered the question!”
And didn’t that give him pause for thought? “Guilt? That’s genuinely what you think?”
The smile was gone, replaced by a curious look and a small shrug. “Made as much sense as anything else.”
“And you never asked?”
“At first I figured I might not want to know. After a while it didn’t matter.” Another shrug.
“Well it did. Does.” He pulled a face at his own semantics. “For the record, then.” He let it hang for a moment, but Tony said nothing. Not that he would have dropped it if he had.
“Plan was to train my own team up from scratch. Then came my trip to Baltimore, and that case. Once the dust had settled, I knew we’d work well together.”
He determinedly ignored the soft snort from the other man. Refused to acknowledge the mutter of ‘Compared to what?’ that came his way.
“You really think I’d want a team of clones of myself?”
Tony’s turn to pull a face, and he resisted the urge to stretch out and cuff him upside the head. Particularly seeing as he was agreeing with Gibbs’ own point.
“So. Decided I wanted someone on board I could trust to disagree with me. Someone who wouldn’t take offence at my personality. Wouldn’t back down, if push came to shove. You didn’t. Still don’t.”
The other man was blushing slightly, but listening.
“Could see your potential, and how it was being wasted. And I was selfish. Wanted your skills working with me.” He paused for a moment before deciding to carry on.
“None of that has changed. The fact remains, trust is vital. You can’t work with me if you don’t trust me. Not in this job. You’ll always have a place on my team, if you want it. Just say the word.”
Tony had gone very still.
“But, while I can understand you might need to leave, not one of us will just let you go. You can change your job, if you have to, but not your life. Got it?”
***
Well.
That was…
Well.
For a moment, Tony just stared, wondering if anything else was coming. When it didn’t, he shook his head vaguely, and stood up. Gibbs moved to speak, and he held a hand up.
“No. Just… no.”
The mouth closed again, and he left the man on the couch, heading for the kitchen, and at least the illusion of some space.
He spent five minutes just staring at the piece of wall he’d been pressed up against earlier in the evening, feeling the echoes of the panic at his fingertips. The shame was there too, and the tendrils of nerves, slipping and sliding around, looking for a way in.
He gave himself a shake, and deliberately turned his back on it for a second time that evening, leaning against the counter, closing his eyes and firmly blanking everything out. Then, when he felt as centred as he was going to get, he opened it all up again, trying to feel his way by instinct alone.
“That’s not how it works.”
He took no notice of how long he was there, or of the other person in the apartment, or of the hundred and one thoughts clamouring to drag him back down into the maelstrom. Instead he focused on anything and nothing. A comment here, a gesture there, just letting the events of the evening soak in to him and take him where they would.
“How what works?”
Took his time. He could feel everything still there, held at bay by nothing more than the force of a will that he knew full well was going to fail, sooner or later. His demons were in the shadows and the corners, just out of reach, not far enough to dodge, waiting for him to stumble, and fail, and let them all back in again. He gritted his teeth, and squared his shoulders, and refused access. Not now. Not here. Not when… there were things that had to be thought about. Important things.
“Having friends.”
And after a while, the jigsaw began to resolve itself, and he began to see some of the threads that had been obscured before. Just enough to ask himself some questions, and offer some answers. Enough to realise that there was a difference between what he knew and what he thought he knew. Enough to face up to the fact that there were things he could deal with and things he couldn’t, and that maybe he should be concentrating on the former right now, not the latter
Providing he could work out which was which.
Trust is vital. You can’t work with me if you don’t trust me.
He could feel those demons getting closer, clawing at his edges, and slapped them down one more time. Three weeks of freefall, and he couldn’t even see his way to ok anymore. He was a mess. And Gibbs was right. Trust was vital.
But he was also wrong. Tony could change whatever he damn well pleased, if he chose to. All he needed was strength. Strength to decide. Strength to act. His judgement may have been a little off its game recently - personally, if not professionally - but that didn’t automatically mean his conclusions were wrong.
Where were you?
Just meant he needed to double and triple check his evidence and see if he still came back to the same place. Take a step back. See what he’d missed. Be sure.
Easy enough to do that. He still had some fight in him, although he wasn’t altogether sure where it was coming from. He’d be all out of adrenaline for months after tonight. Which was probably not a good thing. He was going to crash hard, and sooner rather than later. Wondered if this one would be the one he couldn’t pick himself up from.
He pushed the thoughts away, aware they were sending him reeling right back towards the places he was trying to avoid.
I should have known better.
Now that should be inscribed on his headstone. The thought came with its own punch line, as he flashed onto a gun, and crazy determined eyes, and his own death looming up in stone and shadow.
And by the time he fought that off, his knuckles were white, his stomach was rolling, and he could taste blood again.
You don’t trust me.
He spun around again, glaring at the offending wall, and when that wasn’t enough, striding across the kitchen, changing direction halfway, and slamming the palm of his hand into the cupboard door.
Twice.
Three times.
Growled in disgust, at himself, at the cupboard, at the wall, at the general futility of trying to deny the basic facts of who he was.
He took a moment for surprise that Gibbs hadn’t come stalking in to ‘help’, and then hit the door one more time. He could feel the throb and burn in his palm, and in his shoulder, and used them to push himself out in front of the darkness again.
Then he turned on his heel and stalked out of the room.